Chapter II: Part 2

Jud Hawley had sold them the land with the old building on it for a hundred and fifty dollars and Al and Ted had torn down the old building and rebuilt it. Just the same, expenses had mounted with incredible speed. Al had all the tools, but it was necessary to buy nails. The window casings Al had fashioned, but the glass that went into them cost money. They'd had to buy a secondhand cooking range and a heating stove and enough table and cooking ware to serve many people. Bedding had been an expensive item, and composition shingles for both the roof and outer walls had cost a great deal.

Economizing as much as possible and hiring no labor, the camp had still cost six hundred and fifteen dollars. However, the old building had been a huge place and there was enough lumber left over to build another, smaller camp as soon as they acquired another building site. Ted nibbled the end of his pen.

"We'll be in the clear on this one before next hunting season; then everything it brings in will be pure gravy."

"How do you figger it?"

"There's six weeks of small game hunting and three of deer season. If the camp is rented continuously, it will bring in four hundred and fifty dollars. Then, when fishing opens--"

"If," Al broke in, "is a right fancy word. Might be a good idea to rent your camp 'fore you spend the rent money."

"It might at that," Ted said meekly, "and I forgot to charge against it the fifteen dollars the ad's costing."

"Charge it," Al advised, "and get this one thing straight. There's no such thing as 'pure gravy.' What a body gets, he works for. What he don't work for, he don't get. You started the ball rollin', but it will stop if you don't keep it rollin'."

"What do you suggest I do?"

"Just what you are doin', but don't get cocky about it. You've made a start, but it's a small start that stacks up against a big job. See how things work out. If they come 'round like I think they will, this camp will make money. But it won't be your money. It belongs to the job you've set yourself. Build another camp--and another and another, until you've got as many as you can handle. Go on from there."

"Go on?"

"You started out," Al reminded him, "to own a place like Crestwood."

"That will take years!"

"Did you expect to get it in a week?"

"Well--No."

"Good, on account you won't. You'll need years. Then, after you finally get what you want, or somethin' close to it, all the people who set 'round on their hunkers while you worked will still be settin' 'round tellin' each other how lucky you are."

Ted grinned, then yawned and stretched. "Gosh! All this heavy philosophy's making me tired!"

"What do you think your bed's for?"

"You get the best ideas!"

"Oh, I'm the smart one!" Al smiled and filled his pipe. "Catch yourself some shut-eye. There's work to be done come mornin'."

* * * * *

The next morning, with Al driving and Tammie on the floor in front of Ted, they started back toward the camp they had built. The lazy sun, reluctant to get out of bed, made a splash of gold only on the very tip of Hawkbill. The rest of the wilderness was a deep-shadowed green, with overtones of gray. A doe danced across the road in front of them and stopped to look back over her shoulder at the passing pickup. They saw two more does, then a buck--and Al stepped suddenly on the gas.

Spurting ahead, the old truck still missed by a wide margin a lean coyote that was running a scant twenty feet behind the buck. Tammie rose and bristled. Ted held him down. The collie was fast, but nothing except a greyhound was fast enough to catch a coyote. Visible for only fleeting seconds, this one disappeared in the forest. Failing to run the coyote down, Al stopped his truck.

"Doggone! Of all times to be without a rifle!"

"It looked to me as though he was chasing that buck," Ted observed.

Al shook his head. "Just followin' it; one coyote couldn't kill a grown buck. But he can and will do a lot of damage 'mongst the small game. I'll have to nail that critter's scalp to the wall soon's I can. Let's have a look."

They got out and examined the tracks in the dusty road. Al made careful observations of his own. He went a little ways into the forest and came back to the truck.

"Looks like he's been crossin' here quite a few times. I'll fetch the rifle tomorrow mornin', on the chanst I'll nail him. If I don't, I'd best string some traps. Can't have coyotes in the Mahela."

"We sure can't."

Without completely understanding his father's bitter lesson--seeing his beloved wilderness all but denuded of game by thoughtless or greedy hunters and built back through sound conversation--Ted knew only that Al had an almost ferocious hatred for destructive elements wherever they were found. Therefore, the coyote could not be tolerated. Ted's eyes roved up Hawkbill, and the cool wind felt good on his face. When they mounted a hill, he strove for and caught a glimpse of the burned mountain behind Hawkbill. Al saw and interpreted his look.

"They're there all right, and it's my bet they'll be there after deer season ends."

"Not both of 'em," Ted asserted. "I'm going to nail one or the other."

"Which one you aim to get? Damon? Or Pythias?"

"Either will satisfy. How do you tell 'em apart?"

"I imagine there'd be some small differences if a man was close. But on a far look, I can't tell which is which. They're alike as two peas in a pod. All I'm sure of is that I never saw bigger bucks."

Ted said smugly, "Either should be as much advertising for the Harknesses as it could be for Crestwood."

"Hadn't you ought to get it first?" Al asked wryly. "Well, here we are again."

To the vast delight and relief of a colony of chipmunks that were snugly at home beneath it, the Harknesses had built their new camp on the site of the old. However, they had done so to save hauling lumber and because the old foundation was so solid; any benefits accruing to the chipmunks were merely incidental. The new camp was a one-story structure, twenty-six feet long by eighteen wide.

The exterior, if less than magnificent, did promise comfort. The windows were small, consisting of four panes each, and set well back in their casings. Two tin chimneys, one for each stove, protruded well above the roof. The shingled walls and roof gave assurance that no cold winds could creep in and there was a covered porch. Probably not so much as one hunter would ever sit on it, but it did provide a place for storing wood and keeping it dry. The surrounding goldenrod had been crushed and scattered and the truck had made its own path in.

Al drew up in front of the door and Tammie leaped out to sniff at the various cracks and crevices the chipmunks used in their comings and goings. Al and Ted went inside.

In the center of the one room, not too close to the heating stove, was a long wooden table, with benches on either side. Convenient to it was a built-in cupboard, one end of which contained tableware and dishes. Running along the wall, the other half of the cupboard held skillets, pans and kettles. Nearby was the cooking stove, with cabinets for food storage and a sturdy table for the cook's use. At the other end of the building, as far as possible from both stoves, were the bunks. Scattered along the walls were two secondhand davenports and five chairs that had seen their best days but would still offer comfort to anyone who'd been hiking the hills all day.

Al surveyed the place critically. "Not much like Crestwood."

Ted teased, "It is kind of ramshackle."

"Ramshackle!" Al bristled. "Why you young whipper-snapper! This is as good-built a camp as--"

"There you are!" Ted grinned. "If you had a choice, would you stay here or at Crestwood?"

"Why here," Al grumbled. "I never did go for that fancy stuff."

"And neither do a lot of other hunters. When they go out, they'd as soon be in the woods. Besides, the prices here aren't much like Crestwood's, either. In deer season, Thornton's cheapest room is fifteen dollars a day. We could rent twenty camps like this if we had 'em."

"And we won't even rent this'n 'thout we finish it. Now let's do some figgerin'."

At the kitchen end of the camp, they had built a wooden stand and in it placed the tub from a large kitchen sink. There was an overflow pipe that led to a septic tank beneath the floor of the camp itself; thus it wouldn't freeze. Al scratched his head.

"My figgerin's all done."

"It is?"

"Yup, and it figgers out the same's it always does. If we want water in here, we'll have to work to put it in. Get your boots on."

"Yes, boss."

Ted donned rubber boots and they went out. Tammie, who had been having an exciting time trying to catch a chipmunk that insisted on poking its nose out of a crevice, wagged his tail and ran to join them. A doe that had come to the apple trees stamped an apprehensive foot and drifted slowly into the forest. The two workers took a pick and shovel from the truck, and Al led the way to a little knoll.

On the very top of the knoll was a seepage of water that sent a tricklet into Tumbling Run. Green grass, rather than goldenrod, lined its length and at no place was the runlet more than four inches wide or two deep. Never in Al's memory had it been more or less; the spring provided a constant flow. Even in coldest weather, the runlet never froze, and its banks were always free of snow. It was a favorite drinking place for deer that found other water icebound.

Al asked, "Can you think of any more excuses for deep thinkin'?"

"Not even one."

"Me neither," Al said mournfully, "so I guess we can start the workin' part. Do you want the pick or the shovel?"

"Is there a choice?"

"Could be, but here's the shovel and you might as well dig."

Ted sunk his shovel point deep into the wet earth and scooped out a chunk of soggy earth. Ice-cold, muddy water at once filled the hole and Ted scooped again. He made a wry face.

"This is like shoveling glue!"

"Case you ever get a job in a glue factory, you'll know how to shovel it," Al soothed. "We got to get down anyway three feet."

"I'll persevere, but I know now why you wanted the pick.

"Who's the brains of this outfit?"

"Obviously you are."

"There ain't any real need for a pick." Al grinned. "Wet ground don't have to be loosened. I'll go snake in some wood."

Al left and Tammie frisked beside him. Both got into the truck, and Al drove across the clearing into the woods. Then there came the sound of his ax ringing on dead wood.... An hour later he was back. The pickup's box was filled with wood and Al dragged a log that he had chained to the truck. He left the wood beside the camp and, with Tammie sitting proudly in Ted's accustomed place, drove back for another load.

Ted continued to deepen the spring. It was cold, dirty work, but it was a good idea and certainly it would make the camp more comfortable. The spring must be made deep enough to form a pool. Then its present overflow would be plugged, diverted into some secondhand pipe they'd already bought and led into the kitchen sink. Al thought there was sufficient fall so no pump would be necessary and the water would force itself through the pipe. Thus the cabin would be assured of a continuous flow of fresh, pure water. In winter, when the camp would have no occupants, it would be necessary only to pull the pipe or plug it and so send the overflow back into its original course.

Al returned with a second load of wood, dumped it and came up to see how Ted was doing. Tammie sniffed at the muddy pool, then promptly jumped into it. He climbed out, shook himself and sent a roily spray flying in all directions.

Ted ducked and sputtered, "For Pete's sake, dog!"

Al grinned. "He thinks you need a bath."

Ted glanced down at his mud-spattered boots and clothing. "Maybe I do. Is this deep enough?"

"Let's have the shovel."

Ted stood aside while Al took the implement. An old hand at this sort of thing, he probed expertly into corners that Ted had missed and lifted out shovelfuls of mud without splashing his clothes at all. Ten minutes later he leaned on the shovel and inspected the spring, which in its present stage of construction was a muddy pool, four feet square by a little more than three deep, with the overflow still going down its natural channel.

"That'll do," Al decided. "Now for the plumbin'."

He caught up a length of pipe, walked to the apple trees, inserted his pipe in a crotch and bent it into an 'L.' He bent it again, so that one end formed a gooseneck, and carried his pipe into the cabin. Al maneuvered one end through an already drilled hole in the floor, hung the gooseneck over the sink and used a metal clamp to fasten his pipe to the wall.

Ted marveled. His father had measured nothing, but the bent pipe fitted perfectly and the straight half of the 'L' lay flat on the ground beneath the cabin.

Ted asked,

"What now?"

"Let's eat."

"Most sensible idea I've heard all day."

They ate the sandwiches and drank the coffee they'd brought along while Tammie, sitting hopefully near, expertly caught and gobbled the crusts they tossed him. Then the two went back to work.

Taking a bit of soap from his pocket, Al soaped the threads on another length of pipe; filling the threads, the soap would prevent leaks. The two "plumbers" then fitted this section into the pipe that protruded beneath the cabin and continued with additional lengths until they were within five feet of the spring.

Al cut that five-foot length off with a hack saw. He plugged the cut end with a piece of wood, started at a point about a foot below the top of the knoll and used the flat of his ax to drive the plugged section of pipe through so that it emerged a foot below the surface of the spring. He screwed the short length into the already laid pipe and straightened.

"Now we're diggin' where there's taters!" he said cheerfully.

Catching up the shovel, he closed the spring's outlet with dirt and mud. Then he rolled up his right sleeve, reached into the water and pulled the wooden plug out. A second time he straightened, grinning. "If it don't work, it's a sign we did it wrong. Let's go see."

They re-entered the cabin and stood expectantly near the sink. For a moment nothing happened. Then a series of choking gurgles and a rush of air came through the gooseneck. This was followed by a muddy trickle that subsided to a few drops. Then there was a violent surge of water that leveled off to a steady flow. Al and Ted looked triumphantly at each other.

"It works!" Al said.

"Running water yet!" Ted exulted, "Even if it is muddy!"

"It'll clear itself in a few hours."

"Don't you think we should have a faucet on this gooseneck?"

Al shook his head. "Not in cold weather. It don't freeze 'cause it runs fast. Come spring, we may tie a faucet onto it."

"What do we do now?"

"Go home. It's quittin' time."

Ted was surprised to find that long evening shadows were slanting across the valleys. They had worked hard, and perhaps that had made the day seem so short. Only when they climbed back into the pickup for the ride home did he realize that he was very tired. He tickled Tammie's silken ears.

"Tomorrow's another day," he murmured.

"Yep," Al agreed somberly, "and another day brings more work. Reckon I'll take after that coyote. He's got to be caught. You want to saw wood?"

"Sure thing."

* * * * *

Early the next morning, Al let Ted and Tammie off at the camp and turned back, with traps and rifle, to get on the trail of the marauding coyote. While the collie renewed his acquaintance with the chipmunks, Ted laid a chunk of wood in the sawbuck and sawed off a twelve-inch length. He sawed another ... and worked until noon. After lunch, he started splitting the wood he had sawed. It was the right way to do things. If hunters cut their own wood, they might injure valuable trees.

Evening shadows were long again when Al came to pick him up. "Get your coyote?" Ted greeted his father.

"No, but I will. I found where he's runnin' and I put traps in the right places. See you got a sizable pile of wood."

"I haven't been loafing."

"Not much anyhow."

Ted said tiredly, "What a refreshing sense of humor my old pappy's got."

They turned into the driveway of their own house, to see Loring Blade's pickup truck already there and the game warden waiting. With him was Jack Callahan, Sheriff of Mahela County.

Al's voice was weighted with surprise as he welcomed them. "Hi, Lorin'. 'Lo, Jack. Been waitin' long?"

"Not very long," Loring Blade said. "We figured you'd be in about now. We have to ask you some questions, Al."

"Well, come in and ask."

They entered the house and Ted snapped on the lights in the living room. He started into the kitchen to prepare supper. Al swung to face their guests.

"Ask away," he invited them.

"We came to find out," said Jack Callahan, "what you can tell us about the shooting of Smoky Delbert."

4

THE FUGITIVE

The words brought Ted to a shocked halt, just as he was entering the kitchen. He turned to stare in disbelief and Tammie, sensing that something was wrong, searched his master's face as though this would show him what he must do. Failing to find any guiding sign, the collie turned toward the two strangers. He did nothing and would do nothing until Ted or Al told him to. But he was ready for any part he must take.

In his turn, Ted looked to his father for a clue and found none. Whatever Al might feel, he was successfully hiding it, and his voice was neither raised nor lowered when he spoke.

"Somebody finally got him, huh?"

Jack Callahan challenged, "What do you mean by that?"

"Where you been the past twenty or twenty-five years, Jack? Smoky's been askin' for it at least that long."

Callahan's voice was hard as ice and as brittle. "You didn't answer my question."

"So I didn't, but I will. I know nothin' 'bout who might've shot Smoky, but I can think of lots of reasons why."

"Is this yours?"

Callahan's hand dipped into his pocket and came up bearing Al's distinctive tobacco pouch. Ted gasped. His father was unmoved.

"Yep. But I haven't seen it for two weeks or more."

"That's true!" Ted asserted. "He hasn't had it for at least that long!"

Al said quietly, "Stay out of this, boy."

"You needn't stay out." Callahan swung toward Ted. "Was your father with you today?"

"Well--no."

"Where was he?"

"He was out hunting a coyote."

A note of triumph in his voice, Callahan turned again to Al. "By any chance, a two-legged coyote?"

Al said disgustedly, "Don't be a fool!"

"Did you have your rifle with you?"

"What would you carry if you was huntin' a coyote? A pocketful of pebbles?"

"Can you account for your actions of today?"

"Yep. Crossed the nose of Hawkbill, went into Coon Valley, climbed that to its head, swung behind Burned Mountain, crossed the Fordham Road and come back by way of Fiddlefoot Crick."

"Can you prove all this?"

"Sure!" Al snorted. "I'll get you an affy-davit from a couple of crows that saw me."

"That is your tobacco pouch?"

"I've already said it is."

"That pouch," and again Callahan's voice rose in triumph, "was found not six feet from where Smoky fell!"

"So?"

"Al, I'd hate to have to get tough with you."

"Don't think you'd better try it."

"Loring heard you threaten to shoot Delbert."

"And I also," Loring Blade broke in, "heard Smoky threaten to shoot Al. There's more than one side to this, Jack, and suppose you simmer down?"

"I'm in charge here!"

"But you're getting nowhere. Al, will you talk to me?"

"I'll tell you what I can, Lorin'."

"If you had anything to do with this, tell your story now. I don't hold with shooting, but certainly I never held with Smoky Delbert. I, for one, am willing to believe that, no matter how it happened or who he met, Smoky raised his rifle first. I've known him a long while."

"But you never jailed him."

"Only because," the warden said, "I could never catch him. He was crafty as he was mean. But he's still a human being."

"Could be some argument 'bout that," Al murmured. "Lorin', where was Smoky shot?"

"Coon Valley," the warden answered reluctantly. "Almost beside those three big sycamores near Glory Rock."

"Is he dead?"

"No, but he probably would be if he hadn't dragged himself to the Fordham Road. Bill Layton, passing in his logging truck, found him and took him into the hospital at Lorton."

"Is he goin' to die?"

"He's in a bad way."

"Has he talked?"

"Not yet."

"How about the bullet?"

"It went right through him; we couldn't find it."

"How do you know he was shot near them three sycamores in Coon Valley?"

"Bill told us where he picked him up. Jack and I went up there to see what we could find and," the warden shrugged, "the back trail wasn't hard to follow. Smoky was hit hard."

"And you found my tobacco pouch?"

"That's right, Al. It was within a few feet of where Smoky fell."

"How do you know he fell there?"

Loring Blade shrugged again. "He laid a while before he started to drag himself out. There was plenty of evidence."

"Now here's a point, Lorin'. I've already said I was in Coon Valley today. Suppose I had my pouch, couldn't I have lost it when I passed the sycamores?"

"You could have."

"What time did you go up Coon Valley?" Jack Callahan broke in.

"'Twas before eight. I started early."

"Then you crossed back to the Fordham Road?"

"Don't try to snarl my words up," Al warned. "I've already said that I went up Coon Valley to its head and crossed back of Burned Mountain to the Fordham Road."

"But you heard no shooting?"

Al seemed a little contemptuous. "You ever make that crossin'?"

"I asked you a question."

"And I asked you one. Did you ever cross that way?"

"No." Put on the defensive, Callahan sulked.

"Try it," Al advised shortly. "It's a right smart hop. There's places back in there where you couldn't hear a cannon fired in Coon Valley."

"Look, Al," Loring Blade pleaded, "I'll ask you again to tell your straight story. I'm sure there has to be more to it than this. I know you too well to think you'd shoot Delbert or anyone else down in cold blood. Won't you help me to help you?"

Al said doggedly, "I've told my story. Seems like there's an easy way to settle this whole works."

"What is it?"

"Delbert ain't dead. When he talks, he'll tell who shot him."

"There's no guarantee that Delbert will ever talk."

Jack Callahan said, "I'm afraid I'll have to take you in, Al."

"On what grounds?"

"Suspicion. If Delbert lives, the charge will be assault with a deadly weapon. If he dies--" Callahan shrugged.

Al looked aside, and the fierce storms that could rage in his usually gentle eyes were raging now. Ted shivered, and then Al calmed.

"All right, Jack. If that's the way it must be."

"You won't resist?"

"I promise I won't raise a hand against you or Lorin'."

Loring Blade said relievedly, "That's a help, Al. Thanks."

"Is there any reason," Al asked, "why a body can't eat first? Ted and me've been out sinst early mornin' with only a snack in between."

Loring Blade said agreeably, "No reason at all, Al." Callahan glared at the warden. Al smiled faintly.

"Have a bite with us, Lorin'?"

"I'll be glad to."

"How about you, Jack?"

"Look here, Al, if you try anything--"

"I've give my word that I'll raise no hand to either of you."

"See that you keep your word."

"Leave that to me. Will you eat with us?"

Callahan answered reluctantly, "I'll stay."

"Then Ted and me'll be rustlin' a bite."

Silent, but seething inwardly, Al joined Ted in the kitchen. Knowing something was amiss, but not what he could do about it, Tammie lay down woefully on his bearskin rug. Wanting to speak, but not knowing what to say, Ted looked dully at his father's face. It was unreadable.

Finally Al said, "We'll all feel better when we've had a bite to eat, and I for one am hungry."

He lighted a burner and stooped to take a kettle from beneath the sink. Ted stared his astonishment. Al had the huge kettle, the one they used when there were ten or more hunters staying with them. Half-filling it with water, he put it over the burner to heat and took an unopened peck of potatoes from their storage place. Industriously he began to peel them.

Ted said, "Dad--"

"We'll need plenty," Al broke in. "S'pose you get about four more parcels of pork chops out and start 'em cookin?"

"But, Dad--"

"Let's not," Al whirled almost savagely, "waste our time talkin'. Let's just do it."

Sick with fear, Ted did as directed. He and Al froze pork chops six to a package, and three were all a hungry man wanted. Four more packages meant that they would cook thirty pork chops, and what were any four men--even four ravenous men--to do with them? Ted got four more packages out and began breaking them apart. He stole a sidewise glance at his father. Had this sudden, terrible accusation unseated Al's reason? Ted put the still frozen pork chops into two of their biggest skillets and began thawing them over burners. Loring Blade came into the kitchen.

"Can I help?"

Al said, "Reckon not, Lorin'."

"My gosh! You're making enough for an army!"

"Might's well have plenty. Ted, give me another sack of biscuit mix."

Ted's head whirled. He licked dry lips and looked at the two pans of biscuits Al had already prepared. Loring Blade turned away and in that instant when they were unobserved, Al shook a warning head. Ted took another sack of biscuit mix from the cupboard while cold fear gnawed at him as a dog gnaws a bone. If there was some idea behind this madness, what could it possibly be? Al was preparing enough food for a dozen men.

Ted turned to his skillets full of sputtering pork chops while Al tested the boiling potatoes with a fork.

"Most done," he commented. "How you comin'?"

"Another five minutes."

"Guess I can drain the spuds."

He drained them into the sink, shook them, and added a generous hand full of salt and a bit of pepper. He shook the kettle of potatoes again to mix the seasoning thoroughly. Then he put them on the table and pushed the hot coffee pot to a warming burner. While Ted took their biggest platter from the cupboard and began forking pork chops onto it, Al slipped in to set four places at the table.

"Ready?"

"All ready."

"Guess we can eat, then."

Leaving the potatoes in their huge kettle, he carried it in and put it in the center of the table. Ted brought the platter of pork chops and returned to the kitchen for coffee. Al passed him with two plates of biscuits.

"Chow."

Jack Callahan, who had been so grim and unrelenting and now seemed to regret it, smiled.

"Whew! Are four of us going to eat that?"

"If we can."

"I'll do my darndest."

"You're s'posed to."

"Doggonit, Al," Callahan said plaintively, "don't blame me for this. I have a job and I intend to do it!"

"I know."

"There's nothing personal."

"I know that, too."

"Do you have to be so gloomy?"

"What'd you do if you was on your way to jail? Turn handsprings?"

Loring Blade grinned mirthlessly, speared two pork chops and added a generous helping of potatoes. He broke a hot biscuit and lathered it with butter. The game warden began to eat.

"Seen Damon and Pythias lately?" he asked companionably.

"Nope."

Loring Blade looked down at his plate. Under ordinary circumstances they could have made easy conversation. But circumstances weren't ordinary; the shadow of one in trouble cast its pall over the other three. The game warden ate a pork chop and some of his potatoes. Then, unable to refrain from talking about that which loomed so largely, he burst out, "Al, for pete's sake! If you have anything to say, say it! If you shot in self-defense, I, for one, will buy the story. There's a way out if you'll take it!"

"I've told my story, Lorin'."

"You refuse to admit you shot Delbert?"

"I didn't shoot him."

Callahan said, "There's evidence to the contrary."

"So?"

Ted toyed with a single pork chop, one potato, and almost gagged. He took a drink of hot coffee and found it stimulating. Tammie, lying on the bearskin, looked questioningly at his master. Loring Blade pushed his plate back.

"I'm full. Told you you cooked far too much."

"No harm's done."

"We'll help you clean up."

"Right nice of you."

Al put the uneaten pork chops, a great pile of them, in two covered dishes and placed them in the refrigerator. He covered the kettle of potatoes and left them on the table, and put the biscuits in the breadbox. Ted washed the dishes and Loring Blade dried them.

While he worked Ted brought some order to his scattered thoughts. His father was in trouble, serious trouble, and nothing mattered now except getting him out. That meant the services of a skilled attorney and they had little money. But he could sell the camp for at least as much as it had cost and probably he could get a job in Lorton. Ted washed the last plate and Loring Blade dried it. There was an uneasy interval during which nobody did or said anything because nobody knew what to do or say.

Finally Loring Blade asked, "Are you ready, Al?"

"Yep."

"Shall we go?"

"Guess so."

Ted said firmly, "I'm following you in. I'm going to see John McLean tonight. He's a good lawyer."

There was a ring of command in Al's voice, "No, Ted!"

"But--"

"Don't come to Lorton tonight! Stay right here!"

Ted said reluctantly, "If that's what you want--"

"That's what I do want. This thing's too harebrained already. No use makin' it more so by actin' without thinkin'."

"I'll come in in the morning."

"If you think best. So long for now."

The door opened and closed and they were gone. Ted heard Loring Blade start his pickup and watched the red taillight bobbing down their driveway. They reached the Lorton Road and Loring Blade gunned his motor.

Ted sank dully into a chair and Tammie came to sit comfortingly beside him. The big dog shoved his slender muzzle into Ted's cupped hand, and, getting no response, he laid his sleek head on his master's knee. The measured ticking of the clock on the mantel seemed like the measured ringing of tiny bells. Ted fastened his gaze on it, and because he had to do something, he watched the clock's black hands creep slowly around. Like everything else, he thought, time was a relative thing. Fifteen minutes seemed no more than an eyewink when one was busy, but it was an age when you could do nothing except struggle with your own tortured thoughts.

Another fifteen minutes passed, and another, and an exact hour had elapsed when Tammie sprang up and trotted to the door. He stood, head raised and tail wagging. Ted opened the door.

"Dad!"

"'Fraid I got to move, Ted. Help me pack all thet grub we cooked for supper, will you? Hills'll be full of posse men for the next few days and I can't be startin' any fires."

"But--"

"I kept my promise," Al assured him, "and all I promised was that I wouldn't raise a hand 'gainst Lorin' or Jack. Never did say I wouldn't jump out of the truck when it slowed for Dead Man's Curve."

"They'll be on your trail!"

"Not right away, they won't. I went into the woods when I took off and they're lookin' for me there." He grinned briefly. "Callahan found me. 'Come out or I'll shoot!' he said. I didn't come out and he shot. Hope the beech tree he thought was me don't mind."

"You could have run from here if you were going to run anyhow!"

"When I run," Al Harkness said, "nobody 'cept me gets in the way of any bullets I might draw. Think I want 'em shootin' up you or Tammie?"

Al laid a canvas pack sack on the kitchen table. While Ted wrapped the cooked pork chops in double thicknesses of waxed paper and the excess biscuits in single, his father spooned the potatoes into glass quart jars and mashed them down. He packed everything into the rucksack and added a package of coffee, one of tea, some salt and a few miscellaneous items. Donning his hunting jacket, he shouldered the pack. Filling two pockets with matches, he slid two unopened boxes of cartridges into another. Finally he strung a belt ax and hunting knife on a leather belt, strapped it around his middle and took his rifle from its rack.

"Don't try to find me, Ted."

"What shall I say if they come?" Ted whispered.

"Tell the truth and say I was here. They'll find it out anyhow."

"What are you going to do?"

"Lay in the hills 'til somethin' turns up. Can't do nothin' else now."

"Dad, don't go!" Ted pleaded. "Stay and face it out. It's the best way."

"It might have been," Al agreed, "and I was most tempted to go clear in. But it ain't any more."

"Why?"

"Lorin' had his radio on; listened on the way down. Smoky Delbert come to and talked. He named me as the man who shot him and said I shot from ambush! Be seein' you, Ted."

5

COON VALLEY

Tammie whined uneasily and Ted woke with a start. He glanced at the clock on the mantel and saw that it read twenty minutes past five. The last time he had looked, he remembered, the clock had said half past two. Obviously he'd fallen asleep in the chair where he'd been waiting for someone to come or something to happen. No one had come, but they were coming now. On the Lorton Road, Ted heard the cars that Tammie had detected twenty seconds earlier.

He got to his feet and looked out into the thin, gray mistiness of early dawn. With its lights glowing like a ghost's eyes in the wan dimness, a car churned up the Harkness drive and a second followed it. The boy shrank away. Last night's events now seemed like some horrible nightmare, but the tread of steps outside and the knock on the door proved that they were not.

Ted opened the door to confront Loring Blade and Corporal Paul Hausler, of the State Police. He glanced beyond them at the men gathered beside the cars and saw that three of the nine were attired in State Police uniforms. The six volunteer posse men were Tom and Bud Delbert, Smoky's brothers; Enos, Alfred and Ernest Brill, his cousins; and Pete Tooms, who would go anywhere and do anything as long as it promised excitement and no monotonous labor.

Loring Blade greeted Ted, "Good morning, Ted."

The boy muttered, "Good morning."

"You seen your dad?"

"Yes."

"I mean, since we took him away last night?"

"Yes."

"Did he come back here?"

"That's right."

"What time?"

Ted hesitated. He'd had his eyes fixed on the clock, but seconds and split seconds counted, too.

"I don't know the _exact_ time."

"Better tell the truth," Corporal Hausler warned bluntly. "It can go hard with you if you don't. Where's your father now?"

"I don't know."

"Maybe a couple of slaps will jar your memory!"

He took a step forward. Tammie, rippling in, placed himself in front of Ted. There was no growl in his throat or snarl on his lips, but his eyes were grim and his manner threatening. Hausler stopped.

"I don't think you'd better let him bite me."

Loring Blade said quietly, "Cut it out, Paul. There's enough trouble in this family without adding unnecessarily to it. Ted didn't do anything."

"He can tell us where his father is."

"I cannot!" Ted flared.

"When did he leave here?"

"Last night."

"What time?"

"I forgot to hold a stop watch on him."

"Why didn't you stop him? Don't you know that failing to do so can make you liable to arrest as an accessory after the fact?"

"A sheriff and a game warden couldn't stop him."

"He's right," Loring Blade agreed. "We couldn't. Why don't you start your men into the hills?"

"If he left this house," Hausler threatened, "we'll be on his track in two minutes."

He turned and went out, and Ted laughed. Loring Blade swung to face him.

"You feel pretty bitter, don't you?"

"How would you feel?"

"Not too happy," the warden admitted. "Why did you laugh?"

Ted grinned faintly. "Does that trooper really think he, or anyone else, can track Dad?"

"If he does have such ideas," Loring Blade conceded, "he'll soon have some different ones. Nobody can track Al Harkness."

"Nor can they find him."

"Perhaps not immediately, but sooner or later they will."

"Yes?" Ted questioned. "Send a thousand men into the hills, send a thousand into any big thicket, and they wouldn't find him unless they happened to stumble right across him."

"Al can't stay in the hills forever."

"Maybe not, but he can stay there a long time. He knows every chipmunk den in the Mahela."

"He won't be easy to find," the warden conceded, "but he will be found. What time did he come back last night?"

"Just about an hour after you took him away."

Loring Blade exclaimed, "Wow!"

Ted looked quizzically at him and the warden continued, "We were on Dead Man's Curve, and he was between Jack and me, when suddenly he pushed the door open and just seemed to float out of it. We beat the brush around Dead Man's Curve until one o'clock this morning. About then I tumbled to the idea that he must have come back here."

"Why didn't you come last night?"

Loring Blade shrugged. "He slipped through our fingers once. It wasn't hard to figure that he wouldn't have done that only to let himself be picked up again. Besides, it did seem sort of useless to hunt him at night. He headed into the woods, and because he didn't make a sound that either Jack or I could hear, we thought he was holed up right close. Ted, do you think he shot Smoky?"

"No!"

"Why not?"

"He said he didn't."

"Delbert said he did."

"Just what did he say?"

"That's all. He regained consciousness briefly. The officer with him asked who shot him and he said Al did from ambush. I doubt if he's talked since."

"Do you believe Dad shot Smoky?"

The warden frowned. "If he did, it wasn't from ambush. There's more to it than that. We could have brought it out, but it will be harder now. When Al ran, he made things look pretty bad."

"Not to me."

"But to a lot of other people. Do you think you can get him to come back and give himself up?"

"I asked him last night to stay and face it out."

"Why wouldn't he?"

"Dad's part of the Mahela," Ted said quietly, "and the Mahela's code is the one he knows best. He would not go to jail for a crime he didn't commit, any more than a wild deer would voluntarily enter a cage."

"Doggone, that sure complicates things. Do you have any bright ideas?"

"What did you find in Coon Valley?"

"Just what I told you, Smoky's back trail and your dad's tobacco pouch."

"Nothing else?"

"Smoky's rifle. We brought it in with us."

"No sign of anything else?"

Loring Blade answered wearily, "You know what it's like there. Unless it's a trail like Smoky's, and Smoky was bleeding hard, there's little in the way of sign that a human eye can detect."

"Just the same, I think I'll go up there."

"What do you expect to find?"

"I don't know. Anything would be a help."

"Guess it would at that. Good luck."

"Are--are you going to join the hunt for Dad?"

Loring Blade grinned wryly. "I'm not that optimistic. I agree with you that, if Al wants to lose himself in the Mahela, he won't be found. But sooner or later he'll show up. He can't spend the winter there."

"I wouldn't bet on that."

"Bet the way you please. Now I'm not saying that you will, but if you should run across Al up there in the hills, see if you can persuade him to give himself up. He still has a good case, in spite of Smoky's testimony. Too many people know Al too well to believe he'd shoot anybody from ambush; he has a lot of friends. The only ones who'd join the posse were Delberts and Pete Tooms, and I sure hope none of them stumble across Al. If they come in fighting, he's apt to fight right back, and one stove-in Delbert around here is enough. Good luck again, Ted."

Ted lost his belligerence; the warden was his father's friend. "Stay and have breakfast with me."

"Thanks, but we breakfasted in Lorton before we came here. I'll be seeing you around."

"Do that."

The warden left and Ted was alone except for Tammie. He dropped a hand to the collie's silken head and tried to think a way out of the bewildering maze in which he was trapped. He was sure of two things; Al had not shot Smoky Delbert and his father would stay in the hills until, as Loring Blade had said, winter forced him out. But it would have to be bitter, harsh winter. Al could make his way in anything else.

Ted whispered, "What are we going to do, Tammie?"

Tammie licked his fingers and Ted furrowed his brow. The situation, as it existed, was almost pitifully vague. A man had been shot in Coon Valley, and the only signs left were the hurt man's trail and an accusing finger to point at who had hurt him. There had to be more than that, but what? Loring Blade had found nothing and Loring was an expert woodsman. However, even though everything seemed hopeless, somebody had better do something to help Al and, except for Loring Blade, Ted was the only one who wanted to help him. Even though it was a slim one, finding something that the game warden had not found seemed the only chance. Ted decided to take it.

"But we'll eat first," he promised Tammie.

Ted prepared a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs and fed Tammie. Then he fixed a lunch and, with Tammie beside him, got into Al's old pickup. He gulped. The seat had always seemed small enough when he and his father occupied it together. With Al gone, and despite the fact that Tammie sat beside him, the seat was huge. Ted gritted his teeth and started down the drive.

He turned left on the Lorton Road, slowed for the dangerous, hairpin turn that was Dead Man's Curve, speeded up to climb a gentle rise, descended back into the valley and turned again on the Fordham Road. A well graded and not at all a dangerous highway, somehow the Fordham Road had never seemed a place for cars. It was as though it had always been here, a part of the Mahela, and had never been torn out of the beech forest with gargantuan bulldozers or ripped with blasting powder. For the most part, it was used by the trucks of a small logging outfit which, under State supervision, was cutting surplus timber and by hunters who wanted to drive their cars as close as possible to remote hunting country.

Ted slowed up for five deer that drifted across the road in front of him and stopped for a fawn that stood with braced legs and wide eyes and regarded the truck in amazement. Only when Ted tooted the horn did the fawn come alive, scramble up an embankment and disappear. The boy smiled wearily. Had Al been with him, both would have enjoyed the startled fawn and they would have talked about it.

An hour after leaving his house, Ted came to the mouth of Coon Valley. Long and shallow, the upper parts of both slopes were covered with beech forest. But if any trees had ever found a rooting in the floor of the valley or for about seventy yards up either side, they had died or been cut so long ago that even the stumps had disappeared. The usual little stream trickled down the valley.

Ted pulled over to the side and stopped. He got out and put the truck's keys in his pocket. Tammie jumped to the ground beside him. The big collie bristled and walked warily around a dark stain in the road. Ted fought a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. There was no doubt that some hurt thing had lain here, but unless someone had told him so, he never would have known that it was a man. Ted licked his lips, and Tammie stayed close beside him as they started up the valley.

Smoky Delbert's journey had indeed been a terrible one. Had he not been hardened by a lifetime of outdoor living, probably he never could have made it. In a way, Ted supposed, it was Smoky's atonement for his many vicious practices. Yet, the boy found it in his heart to admit that, whoever had shot the poacher and forced him to crawl, wounded and bleeding, to the Fordham Road, was even more vicious.

Ted stirred uneasily, then calmed himself. Al had said it was no part of his doing. Therefore it was not. Who had done this dreadful thing?

A spring trickling across the valley had left a soft spot. Here Ted stopped instantly. Very plain in the soft earth were the tracks of a single, unshod horse that had walked down Coon Valley and back up it, or up it and back down. Ted could not be sure, but his heart leaped. Loring Blade and Jack Callahan had said nothing about any horses. Who had taken a horse up the valley, and why? His interest quickening, Ted looked for more horse tracks.

He found them farther on, where the trail became a stretch of sand from the little stream's overflow, but he still could not determine whether the horse had gone up or down the valley first. He knew definitely only that it had traveled both ways, and if he could find out why, he might also find a clue as to who had shot Smoky Delbert. Ted kept downcast eyes on the trail.

Save for that unmistakable sign left by Smoky Delbert and an occasional path or little trail which anything at all might have used, for a long ways he found only scattered indications that Coon Valley was traveled at all. The lush grass, beginning to wither because of lack of rain, formed its own hard cushion. An Indian or bushman tracker might have been able to read the story of what had come this way. Ted could find little.

Trotting a little ways ahead, Tammie stopped suddenly, pricked up his ears and looked interestedly at a small clearing that reached perhaps three hundred yards into the beech woods. Following his gaze, Ted saw two brown horses and a black one. Their heads were up and ears pricked forward as they studied the two on the trail. Ted sighed in resignation.

The Crawfords and the Staceys, who lived in the Mahela, each kept several horses. Why they did, why they kept any at all, only they could explain, for neither had enough land to warrant keeping even one horse. Still they had them. The horses were usually left to forage for themselves from the time the first spring grass appeared until hunting season opened. Then sometimes they were pressed into service, to pack or pull the tents and gear of hunters who had a yen for some remote spot, or to pack out deer or bears that had been brought down a long ways from any road.

At any rate, the horse tracks were explained. While it wasn't usual for one horse to break from its companions and go wandering, now and again one would do it. The black horse broke from the two browns, trotted down to Ted, arched its neck and extended a friendly muzzle. Ted petted him.

"Lonesome for a human being, fella?"

Ted went on and the black horse followed him a little ways before it turned back to join the other two.

A half mile from the Fordham Road, Ted came to the three sycamores near Glory Rock.

The sides of Coon Valley pitched sharply upwards here, and the beech forest came closer to the valley's floor. The three sycamores, a giant tree and two near-giants, rustled their leaves in the little breeze and remained aloof from everything else, as though they were the royalty in this place. Even Glory Rock, an elephant-backed, elephant-sized boulder whose ancient face wore a stubble of lichens, seemed demure in their presence. To the left, a raggle-taggle thicket of beech brush crawled to within twenty feet of the valley's floor.

Ted looked down at the place where Smoky Delbert had fallen, and there could be no mistaking it. The boy stood still, searching everything near the spot, and as he did hope faded.

The bullet, Loring Blade had said, had gone clear through Smoky. That, within itself, was unusual. With no exceptions of which Ted knew, everybody who came into the Mahela used soft-point hunting bullets that mushroomed on impact. But now and again, though very rarely, a faulty bullet didn't expand when it struck. Probably that was another factor that had saved Smoky's life. A mushrooming bullet did awful damage. In spite of the fact that some of it might escape the hunter, probably at least eighty per cent of anything hit with one died sooner or later. Smoky, Ted's experience told him, never would have moved from beside the sycamores if this bullet had mushroomed.

Ted furrowed his brows. The bullet might prove a lot, but finding it was as hopeless as locating a pebble in the ocean. There was nothing except the sycamores and grass right here, and none of the sycamore trunks were bullet marked. Going through Smoky without expanding, the bullet had snicked into the ground the same way. Locating it might mean sifting tons, and perhaps dozens of tons, of earth. Even then, unless one were lucky, the bullet might elude him.

Tammie, who was sitting beside Ted and staring into the beech brush, whined suddenly. In turn he lifted both white front paws and put them down again. He drank deeply of some scent that only he could detect. Ted looked keenly at him.

"What have you got, Tammie?"

Tammie ran a little ways toward the beech brush and turned to look back over his shoulder. Ted frowned. Loring Blade had reported correctly and in full everything that could be found in the valley, but Loring hadn't had a dog with him. Obviously, Tammie's nose had discovered something that any human being might well miss.

Ted ordered, "Go ahead, Tammie."

The dog started up-slope toward the brush and Ted followed. He ducked into the thicket, so dense that, once within it, visibility was limited to twenty feet or less and there were places where he had to crawl. In the center of the thicket, Tammie halted to look down and Ted came up beside him.